Antra Bhargava’s Social Impact Model, WoW Kitty, Enables Entrepreneurship Among Women
I grew up intensely patriotic. That used to mean that we cared so much about our country that we would go pick up the trash from the streets, plant trees and help people any chance we would get. That's the kind of patriotic my grandmother and mother taught us to be. Having gone to study Law and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in Ireland, I ended up living there for many years but always longed to be home in India where the smell of the rains still fills up my senses with bliss. On my return, I was overwhelmed with the poverty, the greed, the corruption, the rapes, the barrage of a humanitarian crises - stuff that I had become inured to after over a decade of Europe and only fleeting visits back. It was at this time that I came across The Ugly Indian, an organisation so democratic that no one knew who the founder was. Their motto of 'kaam chalu, muh bandh' (start work, shut mouth) appealed to my intense craving to do good. I started volunteering with them and it felt incredible to be doing something constructive rather than worrying about it. I must confess I was rather proud of my damaged hands and dirty nails on Saturday mornings!
Like most things, practice builds habit. I remember a particular dinner engagement at another 'foreign-return' couple's home where we all stood around with our crystal glasses, sipping wine and several people were waxing eloquent about all the things that were wrong about our country. I also remember a realisation that the entire dialogue felt so hollow as none of these well-educated people were actually getting involved in the solution. Just talking. I knew that was not my path. I needed to be the change that I wanted to see. I found more ways to do good. I volunteered with Bosco, an NGO doing incredible work with trafficked children. After Nirbhaya, I gave up my job to found P.A.C.E. - a model that teaches people of all genders, and all ages, how to build personal safety habits. I am honoured to be the first female black belt in Taekwondo and the first female referee in the National Games in Imphal. My deep training as a martial artist and my years of teaching children and adults came together as we went on to train over 7000 people in this unique, simple method of creating safer environments for themselves and the community.
That same year a quota was brought in for women on corporate boards of directors. Desirous of learning more, I completed a thesis on gender diversity, a topic I ended up lecturing on for the Institute of Directors in India. I discovered many things during the course of gathering data for my thesis but one thing that struck me, and coincidentally I was also reading ‘Lean In’ by Sheryl Sandberg at that time, was that women were socially conditioned to see each other as competition. I resolved to overcome this hurdle and the next time I was at a conference and saw two smart, intelligent women walk in, I made an effort to befriend them. We did actually end up becoming friends to the extent that some people mistake us for sisters now !
At the invite of one of these wonderful women,Anuradha Sarin, I attended the 5th anniversary of Micrograam, an online microfinance P2P lending portal where Mr Ramji Raghavan, the Chairman of Agastya Foundation spoke of how a life-altering idea comes to one as a 'wow' moment. And truly, as he said it, I had this exciting idea of busting so many myths that revolve around women by disrupting the kitty party model. That's how The WoW Kitty (Women Orbiting Women) was born. We started out as a group of 15 women of substance, from all walks of life, who met once a month and contributed the paltry sum of a thousand rupees as a charitable donation to our kitty fund. This we lent to rural female entrepreneurs in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. Today, nearly 2 years on, we have several chapters and have made over 150 loans and raised over 15 lakh rupees! It was so easy to do and so much fun to hang out with inspirational changemakers such as Shoma Bakre and Dr Jija Harisingh.
The speakers we had to our monthly meetings influenced us in innumerable ways from our giving up white rice at home and committing to millets and my fascination for handwoven cotton sarees over designer gear. Don't get me wrong - I still love my Choo but my Chi is more satisfied with khadi :)
Today, P.A.C.E. is on hold as I figure out how to reach the millions that need to be taught the basics of personal safety and I am contemplating a tech product to be able to do it. The WoW Kitty being wholly democratic runs on its own steam powered by the feminist zeal it contains. My husband raises our two daughters in Bangalore while I head SuVitas, India's Award Winning and First Transition Care Facility, with its flagship centre at Hyderabad. SuVitas is a category defining venture which bridges that crucial gap between hospital and home, to ensure a holistic approach to a person's medical rehabilitation. In doing so, we improve health outcomes for patients by drastically increasing the quality of their life, we reduce healthcare costs for them and educate and counsel families on how to manage the care burden. We specialise in the areas of Neurology, Orthopedic, Cardiology and early stage Oncology, with an excellent record in treating victims of Stroke and Road Traffic Accident survivors who have come to us with traumatic brain injuries and polytrauma. We will be shortly launching our Bangalore centre and aim to establish a pan-India presence within the next few years.
Our aim is to collaborate with the best surgeons and consultants and to build sustainable relationships with world class hospitals across the country that will see us as a value-add partner.
So here I am, working on another great socially impactful idea, being the change that I want to see and happy that my life has a legacy. I sleep well each night knowing I tried to do something positive and I wake up each morning joyful that I get to do more. And that my dears, makes all the difference.
Not just talking, Doing.
